


Run The Red

by geckoholic



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Female Friendship, First Meetings, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 12:38:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3447512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time they meet, Sharon is a rookie agent that has impossibly big footsteps to fill, and Natasha is a freshly defected Russian spy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run The Red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [andibeth82](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/gifts).



> I actually did start that AOS noir detective AU, but the plot planning wouldn't go anywhere and I can't write casefiles if I don't know where I'm going with them (unlike everything else, lol), which means that didn't happen. So, knowing how many feelings you had about Agent Carter's Red Room reveals, you got this instead. ;D
> 
> Beta-read by dotfic, thank you! ♥ All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Title is from "Slow It Down" by Amy McDonald.

The first time they meet, Sharon is a rookie agent that has impossibly big footsteps to fill, and Natasha is a freshly defected Russian spy.

When Sharon enters the conference room, Natasha is alone in there, her feet up on the table, the vibe she’s giving off comparable to a purposely abrasive student in afternoon detention. Sharon sits down at the far end of the table, carefully avoiding eye contact. She was called in by Fury himself, and yes, well, okay. Maybe that very fact should have made her realize that this wasn’t going to be a regular assignment. She’s been on exactly three missions so far. The training wheels haven’t come off yet. Of course there’s going to be a catch. If this _is_ Fury’s version of detention, then Sharon must have done something wrong. She just can’t figure out what it may have been.

Ten more minutes pass until the door swing open again, and the Director himself walks in with a barely concealed grin on his face. That can’t be good. He sits, arms crossed on the table, and looks from Sharon to Natasha. He leans forward to push Natasha’s feet off the table, earns a seething glare in response. It doesn’t seem to diminish his good mood.

“Ladies,” he says. “I have an assignment for the two of you.” Natasha’s eyebrows go up in silent protest, and Sharon still hasn’t figured out whether this whole thing is a punishment or a reward. Neither says a word, so Fury marches on. “You’re going to go to Brazil. We’ve found a terrorist cell that acquired a former KGB doctor, who, we believe is going to try and give the Black Widow program a second adolescence.”

Natasha's shoulders tense, but she remains silent, her face expressionless. That explains why he wants Sharon to be along for the ride, but beyond that she's still trying to puzzle what she's specifically supposed to bring to the mission. Surely there’s any number of agents better suited to keeping an eye on their newest recruit. She’s not quite reckless enough to outright _ask_ , though, so she, too, keeps her mouth shut.

Fury shrugs, produces two manila folders and shoves one towards each of them. “Romanoff, I want you to pretend you turned the tables on us, and escaped with an agent of ours held captive. And Carter, I doubt I need to spell it out, but you’re going to be that agent.”

That’s when Natasha seems to remember she’s capable of speech. “You want me to go with her? What about – “

“Agent Barton has been sent to Iceland for another mission,” Fury interrupts her, still grinning. “He hates the cold, and maybe freezing his fingers off in Reykjavik for a month will make him realize that mission directives aren’t optional details he can ignore as he pleases. I doubt it, but some corrective measures were called for, don’t you think?”

It’s a rhetorical question. Natasha frowns, but doesn’t say anything else. Fury stands, nods at both their folders. “Make yourselves familiar. You’ll leave tomorrow morning. Good luck.”

Natasha follows suit, looking Sharon up and down as she goes, and Sharon is left wondering what she did to deserve this. 

 

***

 

On her way home that evening, Sharon takes a detour. Her aunt Peggy had retired the year Sharon started to officially as an agent – timed that way on purpose, Sharon has no doubt – but there’s still nothing going on at SHIELD she doesn’t know about. Chances are she even concocted this plan, or at least suggested Sharon to be a part of it.

And sure enough, Peggy opens the door to her with a knowing smile. “So you got your mission assignment,” she says, stepping back to let Sharon in.

“Was it your idea?” Sharon asks, and the mischievous quirk to her aunt’s lips is answer enough. “Why me?”

“Because I knew you’d be able to see past the old wives’ tales and give that girl a chance.” Peggy ushers her along into the living room, gestures for her to take a seat, and Sharon does.

Another manila folder waits for her on the coffee table, this one much older, and Sharon picks it up without having to be prompted. She looks up to Peggy, and, at her nod, opens it and takes out its contents. There are old reports, still stamped with SSR and not SHIELD, and a bunch of faded black and white pictures.

Peggy lets her look for a moment, then sits down next to her and picks one of the pictures up. “That’s where they were trained. Black Widows. You know how I told you about Dottie? The one who tried to kill Howard Stark?”

Sharon nods. Once upon a time Peggy would have referred to him as _Uncle Howard_ in front of her. But she hasn’t done that since he died, back when Sharon was little.

“These girls, they don’t sign up to be spies,” Peggy says, turning the picture over in her hands. “They are taken when they’re very young, and they never know anything else. I want you to look through these pictures, and I want you to remember them when you’re on that mission with Agent Romanoff. It might help you understand her better.”

She holds the picture out to Sharon, waits for her to sort it back into the folder alongside the rest before she stands. “Now, go home and get some sleep. Big day tomorrow.”

 

***

 

Natasha is already at the landing bay when Sharon shows up, even though Sharon took care to be roundabout half an hour early. Which means they have an additional twenty-eight minutes to stare at their own feet while trying to ignore the other one's presence. 

Until way late last night, Sharon's been looking through the file Peggy gave her, but try as she might, she can't quite reconcile the little girls from the photos and descriptions with the woman in front of her. It's too abstract, incomprehensible, as another person's tragedy often is. They sit in silence during the whole flight to Brazil, Sharon stealing glances and Natasha willfully ignoring her. 

Maybe Peggy was wrong, and Sharon's not the right person for this mission after all – not as compassionate as her aunt wants to believe, because when she looks at Natasha, she's still equal parts fear and morbid curiosity. With a sigh that has Natasha throw her a questioning glare, Sharon leans back in her seat, closes her eyes, and pretends she's dozing off. 

 

***

 

For what it's worth, Natasha _is_ a professional and damned good at what she does. The petulant tween she's been displaying at SHIELD – and which Sharon's starting to think has merely been another ruse – gets shed as soon as they arrive at their safe house, which they're supposed to stay the night at. Natasha checks every exit, uses some SHIELD toys to secure a parameter, and then sits Sharon down. 

“For this to work, you need to be convincing,” she says, and Sharon's a little bit affronted. She may be no Black Widow, but she has been raised into the intelligence business like other kids are raised into farming or running a family-owned restaurant. 

“Yeah, don't worry.” Sharon frowns, looking around until she finds a few inches of rope that she presumes was used for climbing a few decades ago. Now it's old and faded and somewhat frayed, and just right. She takes out her pocket knife and cuts it in three parts, two shorter, one longer, and winds the shorter ones around her wrists. When she's done, she looks at Natasha, eyebrows raised. “I'll wear these over night, for some believable, layered rope burns tomorrow. If you want to add some scrapes or bruises to the picture, feel free. And the first thing agents learn under Fury is how to shut up, so I should be settled on that front. I'm not going to fuck this up.” 

“Okay,” says Natasha, with an expression that does look genuinely pleased. She pulls the map of the area SHIELD intelligence supplied the with out of the mission file, unfolds it and lays it out so they can both look at it. “I was planning to approach from the south, there's mostly forest on that side and the guards seem to be centered out front. What do you think?” 

 

***

 

Okay, so being a hostage? Not an experience Sharon's keen on ever going through in reality. Natasha gives it her all, shoves and prods at her and otherwise ignores her existence. She has the cold muzzle of a gun to her head twice. The looks some of the male goons give her are truly terrifying, and she feels powerless and alone even though she's certain Natasha would intervene before anything bad could happen. 

None of that measures up to when they're showed the children's quarters, though. Row of beds that looks like they're taken from an hold horror movie, gurneys stored in the hallways, long shelves filled with uniformed kid-sized gym dresses... There are no girls here yet, they're still preparing the facility, but the show the doctor's giving them – well, giving Natasha, technically – nevertheless makes Sharon's blood run cold. 

Natasha listens to his big speeches with a face that doesn't betray any emotion – no disgust, no fear, noting else at all – and Sharon slowly realizes why Peggy showed her the old file, and, furthermore, why Fury saw it fit to assign Natasha this mission. They would have had other means to infiltrate this facility, or level it to the ground. Sending in the very person who went through the program herself wasn't strictly necessary. The doctor isn't quite old enough to have been there in the forties, when Peggy went to Russia, but he's plenty old enough to have been around when _Natasha_ was trained. He chirps on about his partners and his suppliers, like a father would to a child that has come home to inspect the improvements to the family business. 

At the end of their tour, when he once more points out how glad he is she's here to join him and goes in for a fucking _hug_ , Natasha draws her gun and puts a bullet between his eyes. Sharon doesn't move a muscle as she watches it happen. Their directive had been to capture, rather than kill, but killing explicitly _was_ given as a viable option and she's pretty sure he already told them everything worth knowing about the way this operation was set up and who was involved. 

As the doctor's body sinks to the ground, Natasha turns to Sharon. “Are we going to have a problem with this?” 

“No.” Sharon shakes her head. “My report will state that he made us, drew a gun first, and you had no other choice. As far as I'm concerned, that's what happened.” 

Natasha nods, her eyes lingering on Sharon for a long moment before she holsters the gun. “We should get out of here. Regular extraction is scheduled in an hour, and we still have to get back to the safe house.” 

 

***

 

Three weeks pass and Sharon's sitting at alone table in the cafeteria at headquarters, nursing a milkshake and a chicken salad and absorbed in reading a report, when she hears someone clear her throat next to the table and glances up to look right at Natasha. 

“Mind if we join you?” She's got Barton in tow; he's busy glaring preemptive daggers at everyone who so much as raises their eyes at the two of them, obviously content to leave the seating arrangements to her. 

Sharon shuffles her papers together to make room. She's not used to company during her breaks; she's pretty sure half of her fellow recruits think she's only here because her last name is Carter, and the other half assumes she'll relay every word said to her in private to Fury or her aunt. “It's a free country, go ahead.” 

They settle across from her, wordlessly digging into their food. By the time lunch break is over, neither of them has spoken another word, but the next day they show up again, and the week after that. By the end of the month, Sharon's discovered that Natasha has a sweet tooth and steals shamelessly from other people's plates, and suspects Barton orders half his pastries for her to snag. 

Once you got to know them, Sharon finds, they're pretty good company.


End file.
